Reopening this week, I.M. Pei’s East Building just got better—without getting any bigger

The new Roof Terrace of the East Building at the National Gallery of Art with a view of Nam June Paik’s Ugly Buddha and Ugly TV (1991–1996), Kenneth Snelson’s V-X (1968), Scott Burton’s two Rock Settees (1988), and Katharina Fritsch’s Hahn/Cock (2013), on longterm loan from Glenstone Museum (Image: Photo by Rob Shelley, courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)

Works by Rothko in the new Tower Gallery (Image: courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)

Step inside and the differences become clear. The gallery, which reopens to the public on 30 September, has managed to carve out more than 12,250 sq. ft of additional exhibition space without expanding its physical footprint. The changes have inspired a comprehensive reinstallation of the collection that will transform the way more than four million annual visitors understand the story told by DC’s premier art museum.